Synopsis (What's It About?)

Have you ever been kissed by a dog? Ever had to eat Vegemite off your sister's big toe? Have you had a job delivering teeth? Has a bloodthirsty magpie ever been out to get you? Ever woken up to discover that everything hovers? And have you eaten 67 hot dogs in ten minutes?

I have. I'm Tom Weekly. This book is full of my stories, jokes, cartoon characters, ideas for theme park rides and other stuff I've made up. It's where I pour out whatever's inside my head. It gets a bit weird sometimes but that’s how I roll.

Listen to 'The Dog Kisser', an Audio Short Story'

Watch the Book Trailer

Download 3 Colouring-In Pages

Author Note From Tristan Bancks

All stories are part fact and part fiction. Even history is part fact and part fiction. Many of the stories in My Life and Other Stuff I Made Up sprang from things that have happened to me. I then supercharged those stories to make for a series of (hopefully) funny and surprising tales.

I grew up reading Paul Jennings books like Unreal, Unbelieveable and Quirky Tails. I loved these books. Nobody else, at the time, other than Roald Dahl, was writing surprising, funny, odd tales for children quite like these. I have used my love of those stories to inspire my own writing. As a kid I always jotted my ideas down in exercise books and notebooks. I didn’t know what I would do with them but I just had to get them down.

I encourage all kids, in fact all humans, to get your ideas down – ideas for stories, movies, inventions, video games, jokes, cartoon characters and just general thoughts on life. You never know when they might come in handy. This book looks and feels a bit like one of my notepads as a kid, with pictures and weird, funny stories and things that would make me laugh. A book like this is a space for you to make their own, to come back to, and to feel safe to explore. As soon as you can write, get yourself a book like this where you can be bold and adventurous without needing to be ‘right’ or having to prove anything to anybody.

Illustrator note From Gus Gordon

Tom Weekly reminded me very much of my 12-year-old self. It wasn’t too difficult a task to channel the random thoughts of that younger, fantastically naïve, enthusiastic, imaginative boy as it is pretty much how I am today. I still, like Tom, daydream about incredible situations and still have the propensity to think in a random, fractured manner, jumping from thought to thought with no real segue as if I am picking my thoughts out of a hat. Drawing for me was the most efficient way of communicating these unorganised ideas. Off-kilter illustrations and pointless list writing were a speciality of mine.I drew in every class, in every margin on everything and anything I had in front of me. This kind of fervour – the need to express myself through drawing – was how I approached the illustrations, or more specifically, how I saw Tom drawing them – a natural extension of his rambling imagination.

The subjects (awkward encounters, girls, gross bodily functions, eating) were also all too familiar to me. Whether it was a panicked list about an operation, escaping false teeth or a drawing of a floating poo, it all felt disturbingly normal. Obviously it was the same for Tom!

What Kids and Critics Are Saying:

'A sort of Aussie tall-tale version of Jeff Kinney's Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Bancks' latest features stories with a high-level gross-out factor.' - Booklist (US)

'Are you ready to laugh? Yes? Good. Because you won't be able to help yourself once you open this cover ... Boys will love this book. Fans of Griffiths, Gleitzman and Jennings will be thrilled to have this book in their collection.' - www.kids-bookreview.com

'Tristan Bancks books are really funny and I love them! My favourite book that he made was My life and other stuff I made up. In fact I was at his writers workshop at Warrigal Road State school. I definitely recommend his books for everyone.' - BJ, reader.

Hi Tristan. I was part of the extension writing class at the school you just visited, and I have a suggestion of what you could do with the attack of the star-nosed moles idea for the second "my life and other stuff I made up". You could possibly have a giant floating star-nosed mole nose with no body. It could be the master of all the star-nosed moles attacking. The only problem is fitting it into a short story like youw ere talking about in extension writing.

Hey, that is a really creepy idea... the floating star-nosed mole with no body. As if star-nosed moles aren't creepy enough as it is. But brilliant! Genius! I want to use it! Or you can. Or both. Thanks for writing. T.